---
title: Pipedown Sailor! Berlin's Listening!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pipedown-sailor-berlins-listening-1942/
description: 'Security poster: a uniformed sailor talks loudly into a telephone while a shadowed man in a hat listens from behind a corner.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Pipedown Sailor! Berlin's Listening!

[![Pipedown Sailor! Berlin's Listening!, 1942 US poster: Security poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/pipedown-sailor-berlins-listening-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/pipedown-sailor-berlins-listening-1942.jpg)

# Pipedown Sailor! Berlin's Listening!

Security poster: a uniformed sailor talks loudly into a telephone while a shadowed man in a hat listens from behind a corner. The headline tells the serviceman to pipe down because Berlin is listening. The fear-appeal is the hidden listener.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
PIPEDOWN SAILOR!
BERLIN'S LISTENING!
[signature: illegible]
[imprint: Post on transportation property only. For additional copies write to Graphics Division, Office of Facts and Figures, Washington, D. C. . . . Specify GPO Jacket No. 451042.]
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1942-O]
```

[← Partners Wanted! Uncle Sam & Co.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/partners-wanted-uncle-sam-and-co-war-bonds-1942/) [Pipedown Soldier! Berlin's Listening! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pipedown-soldier-berlins-listening-1942/)

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- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
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- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
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- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)